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Today
we mark the 5th anniversary of the entry into force of the WHO
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. As with all anniversaries, today
provides an opportunity both to reflect on and celebrate past successes and to
look ahead to what we hope the future will hold. The
FCTC is a remarkable achievement. It is the first treaty negotiated through the
auspices of the WHO, a resounding recognition that international law has a
critical role to play in global health. It already has 168 Parties.
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It has
catalysed action across the globe, elevating the importance of tobacco control
as a global health and political issue, stimulating policy change at the
domestic level and bringing new public and private resources into the field.
The
FCTC Conference of the Parties has adopted strong guidelines on four of the
Convention’s key substantive articles, and work is underway on the development
of a number of other guidelines and a protocol.
But
for each FCTC success, there is an equally difficult ongoing challenge. The
available resources – both financial and human – are not sufficient for the
magnitude of the task. The relationship between tobacco control and social and
economic development is not widely enough understood. The tobacco industry
continues to exercise its political and financial power to undermine the FCTC’s
effectiveness.
More
than one hundred Parties have submitted their 2-year implementation reports and
the first 5-year implementation reports are due to be submitted today. But,
while information on implementation is being submitted, the COP is giving
insufficient consideration to these reports, to examining them in detail and to
learning what is really happening on the ground and the lessons that can be
drawn from Parties’ experiences.
While
we have no hesitation in describing the first five years of the FCTC’s life as
a success, over the next five years, it is time to see the FCTC mature into a
treaty that can stand side-by-side with its counterparts in other fields, such
as the environment and human rights.
A
critical aspect of this maturity must be a robust system of implementation
review. Such systems are now routine across diverse areas of international law.
They provide a process for real monitoring of whether Parties are living up to
their commitments, but even more importantly, they allow for focused discussion
of successes, challenges and obstacles, the learning of lessons and the making
of recommendations to enhance the treaty’s effectiveness. Without this kind of
oversight, and cycles of learning, priority-setting and action, treaties tend
to lose their way and fail to live up to their promise.
By
the time we arrive at the FCTC’s 10th anniversary, in February 2015,
it must have a well-developed system of implementation review in place. At the
centre of this system should be a standing committee elected by the FCTC COP,
with a mandate to review and report on Parties’ implementation reports, draw lessons
from Parties’ experiences and make recommendations for action to the COP. There
are ample examples from other treaties to draw upon. If the FCTC is to reach
maturity by its 10th anniversary, the discussion of such a system
must be commenced at the upcoming session of the COP in November this year
(COP-4), substantial inter-sessional work must be carried out between COP-4 and COP-5,
likely to be held in 2012, and decisions must be ready to be taken at COP-5.
Alongside
this, FCTC Parties must prioritise tobacco control for funding and commit the
necessary human and financial resources to tackling the tobacco epidemic in
their countries. Donors need to recognise that existing funding mechanisms are
not always the most appropriate instruments to deliver effective tobacco control
and that much more attention must be paid to funding for non communicable
disease prevention programmes.
As
representatives of civil society, committed to tobacco control and global
health, we look forward to engaging in these processes, and to celebrating the
FCTC’s 10th anniversary in 2015, reflecting on another five years of
even greater success, and looking at a mature treaty living up to its promise
of protecting present and future generations from the devastating health,
social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco.
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